Leak shows AMD "Ryzen C7" SoC for smartphones with impressive specs

[nanoguy]

Rumor mill: AMD's renewed popularity thanks to Ryzen CPUs is well deserved offering both excellent performance and value for PC gamers and enthusiasts. Now the company might take a shot at doing the same on the smartphone market.

Qualcomm, Samsung, Mediatek, and Huawei's HiSilicon are among the largest chip makers for smartphones, tablets, and wearables. There are also smaller companies like Rockchip who have been trying to compete, and now it looks like AMD is getting ready to test these waters as well.

According to a leak spotted by Twitter user HansDeVriesNL, AMD may be preparing a Ryzen-branded smartphone SoC that, if proven real, could shake up the mobile market much in the same way as desktop and workstation Ryzen processors have done for PCs.

Specifically, the company could be preparing an SoC named "Ryzen C7" that features two Gaugin Pro cores based on ARM's recently announced Cortex X1 cores running at 3GHz paired with two cores based on the Cortex A78 running at 2.6 GHz, and four low-power cores based on the Cortex A55 running at 2 GHz.

Perhaps more interesting is that the chip seems to pack the elusive RDNA-based smartphone graphics solution that AMD and Samsung partnered for in 2019. This solution has been shown to be significantly faster than the Adreno 650 found in top smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S20. That, coupled with support for LPDDR5 RAM and 2K displays at 144Hz would make the Ryzen C7 a beast.

The new chip is rumored to be built by TSMC on a 5nm process node and feature 5G connectivity using an integrated Mediatek 5G UltraSave Modem with support for dual SIM. As always, take this rumor story with the customary grain of salt, but if the leak is real, this could bring in a new stream of revenue for AMD.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/85453-leak-shows-amd-ryzen-c7-soc-smartphones-impressive.html

 

[redgarl]

AMD with ARM...? That's crazy... at this point, AMD could pave the way to ARM laptops. It just means trouble for Intel...

 

[Lionvibez]

AMD has to focus on the X86 Laptop market which they finally have some nice designs for before worrying about ARM laptops. Majority of laptop sales are in the X86 market which go to OEM's like Dell, HP, Toshiba who then sell to business. I've yet to work anywhere and on the first day and given an ARM laptop. Getting in on the GPU side of ARM's Soc will be great due to how much cell phones are sold every year.

The competition is getting good now, it will take many more quarters and sales of sustained growth for Intel to be in "trouble" if you look at the size of both companies.

 

[grumblguts]

AMD has to focus on the X86 Laptop market which they finally have some nice designs for before worrying about ARM laptops. Majority of laptop sales are in the X86 market which go to OEM's like Dell, HP, Toshiba who then sell to business. I've yet to work anywhere and on the first day and given an ARM laptop. Getting in on the GPU side of ARM's Soc will be great due to how much cell phones are sold every year.

The competition is getting good now, it will take many more quarters and sales of sustained growth for Intel to be in "trouble" if you look at the size of both companies.

 

[redgarl]

AMD has to focus on the X86 Laptop market which they finally have some nice designs for before worrying about ARM laptops. Majority of laptop sales are in the X86 market which go to OEM's like Dell, HP, Toshiba who then sell to business. I've yet to work anywhere and on the first day and given an ARM laptop. Getting in on the GPU side of ARM's Soc will be great due to how much cell phones are sold every year.

The competition is getting good now, it will take many more quarters and sales of sustained growth for Intel to be in "trouble" if you look at the size of both companies.

Intel is in serious trouble. Money doesn't matter when you cannot get products out the door. It is not with a 7% IPC improvement over Ice Lake that 10nm will be anything to be worried about. The elephant in the room is that 10nm doesn't clock well making their 14nm offering perform better at everything.

Intel have nothing and that's the reason why they are going for that TAM strategy. They are just throwing dirt on the wall hoping for it to stick there. Basically they just gave up on their monopoly because they know the competition risk to last for a while.

Every of their venture outside the CPU realm is screaming disaster. Their whole mobile modem enterprise, their GPU venture, their custom chip business, their fabs... beside CPU and benchmark tools, they did nothing. Their only way to get in, is either buying, cheating or draining talent from their competition. That's not a frigging strategy, that's just burying their head in the sand.

 

[Lionvibez]

Not sure I understand the reference with your video here.

Intel is in serious trouble. Money doesn't matter when you cannot get products out the door. It is not with a 7% IPC improvement over Ice Lake that 10nm will be anything to be worried about. The elephant in the room is that 10nm doesn't clock well making their 14nm offering perform better at everything.

Intel have nothing and that's the reason why they are going for that TAM strategy. They are just throwing dirt on the wall hoping for it to stick there. Basically they just gave up on their monopoly because they know the competition risk to last for a while.

Every of their venture outside the CPU realm is screaming disaster. Their whole mobile modem enterprise, their GPU venture, their custom chip business, their fabs... beside CPU and benchmark tools, they did nothing. Their only way to get in, is either buying, cheating or draining talent from their competition. That's not a frigging strategy, that's just burying their head in the sand.

The numbers doesn't support this serious trouble. There is no doubt AMD is competitive now, but I will stick with my statement. AMD's current design wins in laptops should help to give them more mobile market share.

News & Events

www.intc.com

 

[Red999]

AMD has to focus on the X86 Laptop market which they finally have some nice designs for before worrying about ARM laptops. Majority of laptop sales are in the X86 market which go to OEM's like Dell, HP, Toshiba who then sell to business. I've yet to work anywhere and on the first day and given an ARM laptop. Getting in on the GPU side of ARM's Soc will be great due to how much cell phones are sold every year.

The competition is getting good now, it will take many more quarters and sales of sustained growth for Intel to be in "trouble" if you look at the size of both companies.

I think AMD wants to put Radeon in mobile. If they sell Radeon Mobile like ARM does for Mali, that means AMD must share the HDL codes which is not preferred way.

 

[dreamer2908]

The naming is odd, as Ryzen always goes with Zen core so far.

The specs on paper looks indeed impressive.

 

[Cooe14]

This is a TERRIBLE fake. Like come on guys! They didn't even spell "Gauguin's" name right for heaven's sake. Techspot reporting on this blatantly fake trash is a terrible look for this site...

 

[Nobodysfool]

Man, AMD is on a roll! Here's to an "entry-level" mobile Ryzen CPU.

 

[Squid Surprise]

There were rumours that Ryzen 4000 was going to be on 5nm... and everyone said it was foolish... I guess the rumours were based on AMD reserving foundry space - but it wasn't for Ryzen 4000, it was for mobile... maybe now Samsung phones will only be 75% slower than Apple instead of twice as slow...

 

[Dragonstongue]

Folks say this is crazy AMD and Arm bit.. look back not all that long ago folks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_K12

this could have very well also been work / outlining the spec with AMD maverick Uarch design team, such as Jim Keller

when it was first announced, it was before Ryzen would have launched (or in a very similar time frame .. I.e both slated for 2017 type thing) AMD was set to release Ryzen (Zen) to the world.

I am certain they wanted everything to "work out" as it was a monumental effort I am sure, with a company very much on last ditch effort (likely the very last chance, or would have likely been forced to close up shop for good, as they had to sell, then rent back their head quarters among other things)

2 designs, both very $$$$$$ endeavors, untested new architecture, on a new node, while wallet only has dust left in it..do you stick with what you know best, x64 / x86 CPU or chase completely unfamiliar territory and hope it "pays out" via the ARM route, do you do both?

long story short, now we are 7nm and soon to be 5mn via TSMC, whereas "back then" it would have been "at best" 14nm (or 16nm if TSMC was used) or "worse" if $$ was that much tighter, example 22nm or larger type deal.

anyways.... all the work had been done "way back then" as the same design teams that made Zen what Zen is, (then Zen+, then Zen2, very soon Zen 3-4-5) type thing, also did similar work towards this ARM based design, fast forward the clock, now that they have seen what can be done, potentially what can be done, new releases from ARM and all that stuff.

in my mind, now that you "are flush with cash" would be the time to take on that "new horizon" such as smartphone processors, Wifi6 and all that (also keeping in mind, many many moons ago, AMD did make their own memory, as well as all modern smartphones / cellular / mobile NEED .. heck they sold many of the companies they have made / branded under their own unique IP so they could be sold if need be / become their own entities .. such as Imageon hwich was absolutely for such uses (graphics IP.. which AMD sold to Qualcomm, which was "folded" into their Snapdragon SOC designs.

in other words, AMD very much has the expertise to pull something like this off, in many ways, they likely were the very first to get all the relevant high performance and/or low power while still have tons of performance under the hood.

so yeh.. it would be cool as heck to see such things, and with the rumor mill churning, AMD is making the next Nintendo "switch" or whatever it will be called, (looking at the Nvidia design of switch original, which is very low powered but high performance vs PS4 / Xbox1) I can see this being the exact thing they need to be doing, so they fine tune their designs overall

--------

will be cool, if the specs make others look "shameful" and they also apply similar methodology as they have done with Ryzen, that is, very solid offering for a reasonable price of entry .. time will tell, as it always does.

 

[Irata]

I think AMD wants to put Radeon in mobile. If they sell Radeon Mobile like ARM does for Mali, that means AMD must share the HDL codes which is not preferred way.

AMD getting their GPU into mobile would imho help their desktop / laptop products, as well since energy efficiency would have to be a strong focus.

Their work on Tegra hasn‘t exactly hurt nVidia in this regard.

Do I believe this rumor ? Not right now, but we‘ll see.

 

[Tams80]

Well, taking a big fat dump on Intel wasn't enough, eh? Not that Intel don't deserve it...

And it's quite amusing that they are competing with their (well, ATI's) old mobile graphics technology. Even with the name... Radeon vs. Adreno.

AMD has to focus on the X86 Laptop market which they finally have some nice designs for before worrying about ARM laptops. Majority of laptop sales are in the X86 market which go to OEM's like Dell, HP, Toshiba who then sell to business. I've yet to work anywhere and on the first day and given an ARM laptop. Getting in on the GPU side of ARM's Soc will be great due to how much cell phones are sold every year.

The competition is getting good now, it will take many more quarters and sales of sustained growth for Intel to be in "trouble" if you look at the size of both companies.

Don't worry, AMD aren't abandoning x86 laptops. It's just issues with OEMs and AMD and AMD's near absence mean that it's going to take time for more designs to come through. The 3000 mobile series was the breakthrough and the 4000 series is the build-up, but it probably won't be until the 5000 series that they are common in OEM designs. If Intel wake up, then the 6000 series (or perhaps 5000 series) will be when there will be fierce competition.

 

[Ludak021]

So, what's your turnover and how many orders you have for it, and from whom?
None you say...well, I am afraid am not going to invest, I am out
- Jenny.

 

[Lionvibez]

There were rumours that Ryzen 4000 was going to be on 5nm... and everyone said it was foolish... I guess the rumours were based on AMD reserving foundry space - but it wasn't for Ryzen 4000, it was for mobile... maybe now Samsung phones will only be 75% slower than Apple instead of twice as slow...

The ARM Soc vs Apple Soc won't change with this since this is only a GPU change. However on the gpu side they should now be competitive with what apple is offering.

 

[Proposition Joe]

This has reported to be fake, in fact the entire bottom half of the slide has been copy pasted directly from the snapdragon 865 webpage


link video at the 45:00 mark
https://adoredtv.com/overvolted-9-amds-leaky-ship/

 

[Eldritch]

This is huge if it is true. Right now its just Qualcomm everywhere and the development/growth rate will explode if AMD is competing here. Frankly, all of the 865 mobiles are having relatively steep prices for a device that runs hardly two years. Would be great if we could get a price war here.

 

[Jon Tseng]

I'm calling BS on this one. Mediatek doesn't have a discrete modem and it would be a big amount of heavy lifting to cut it out of their exiting integrated Soc and graft it onto a third party untried ARM ISA architecture. The level of detail on the "fact sheet" implies it would be a 2021 part simply not realistic on that timeframe.

Plus some of the GFX details doesn't make sense. Seriously ray tracing on a mobile GPU (because these things are like not thermally constrained?) is that seriously going to be supported on a mobile form factor. Plus VRS (because like you are going to have diffentially shared parts of the frame on a 6 inch screen). Come on that is fanboy cut and paste by someone who doesn't understand how mobile SoCs work.

This is fake.

 

[Irata]

Plus some of the GFX details doesn't make sense. Seriously ray tracing on a mobile GPU (because these things are like not thermally constrained?) is that seriously going to be supported on a mobile form factor. Plus VRS (because like you are going to have diffentially shared parts of the frame on a 6 inch screen). Come on that is fanboy cut and paste by someone who doesn't understand how mobile SoCs work.

This is fake.

Not arguing whether this is fake or not but it would make sense to have the same iGPU block for Arm and X86 Apu from a cost perspective.

On a small screen device VRS maybe doesn‘t make sense but for a tablet it already does.
Plus, what would the point of removing the feature be?

 

[Jon Tseng]

Not arguing whether this is fake or not but it would make sense to have the same iGPU block for Arm and X86 Apu from a cost perspective.

On a small screen device VRS maybe doesn‘t make sense but for a tablet it already does.
Plus, what would the point of removing the feature be?

Yeah so setting aside the fake stuff, it would be possible to share the same CPU architecture between a mobile and desktop part; historically these have been different but modern GPU μArch has more commonality (e.g. tile-based rendering - first used by Imagination in mobile GPU and then adopted by NVDA). IIRC some of NVIDIA's last mobile SoC had commonality with desktop GPU.

However you are still gonna have to tape out an entirely new chip which is the where a lot of R&D cost will lie, so it probably wouldn't make sense to incorporate desktop features lock, stock and barrel when you could strip them out at this stage. Given how critical power efficiency is for a mobile SoC you def want to minimise redundant transistors where at all possible! (this would be the answer to the Q about removing VRS too)

 

[Amariami]

Folks say this is crazy AMD and Arm bit.. look back not all that long ago folks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_K12

this could have very well also been work / outlining the spec with AMD maverick Uarch design team, such as Jim Keller

Same name to Nortbridge K12, Chipset for K10 Architecture AMD Llano ?_?

 

[cfbcfbcfb]

AMD with ARM...? That's crazy... at this point, AMD could pave the way to ARM laptops. It just means trouble for Intel...

Intel has been working with and producing ARM products for over 25 years.

 

[redgarl]

Some people reported this story as fake.

 

[quadibloc]

Since they would be licensing the cores from ARM, it isn't as if they would be taking that much away in terms of design resources from their x86 Ryzen efforts, but if there are reports this leak is faked, I'm still inclined to believe them.